


Villt Vindur

by Ffwydriad



Series: The Vanir Queen [1]
Category: Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angry Frigga (Marvel), Angst, Asgard (Marvel), Awesome Frigga (Marvel), BAMF Frigga (Marvel), Backstory, Colonialism, Dark, Fantastic Racism, Feminist Themes, Frigga (Marvel) Feels, Frigga (Marvel) Needs a Hug, Gen, Historical, Imperialism, Marvel Norse Lore, Moral Ambiguity, POV Frigga, Politics, Pre-Canon, Royalty, Thor: Ragnarok (2017) Compliant, Vanaheimr | Vanaheim, War, Women In Power
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-14
Updated: 2018-03-14
Packaged: 2019-03-24 05:52:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13804800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ffwydriad/pseuds/Ffwydriad
Summary: Of Vanaheim, and the fall of Hela, and the rise of Frigga, queen of Asgard.





	Villt Vindur

**Author's Note:**

> This story works as a prequel to the Thor movies, focusing on Frigga, Odin, and Hela. It is a mixture of movies, comics, and some of the mythology. It focuses heavily on themes of imperialism, colonialism, power dynamics, and racism, and therefore may include some triggering content. For the most part it only scratches the surface on these themes.
> 
> The Vanir of the movies are shown to be Asian-inspired, specifically Mongolian from the one shot of Hogun's village. Therefore Frigga can be read as white or racebent to being Asian, left ambiguous. The themes of racism are based on the Vanir-Aesir-Jotun distinction and not necessarily on skin color, but given that the Aesir have all, as yet, been portrayed as white (before you ask, Heimdall is Vanir, not that it actually ever comes up) so I'm not denying that's likely a factor. There won't be any derisive remarks based on appearances, however. 
> 
> This may be the most serious piece of fiction I've ever written. Huh.

Her mother told her that her first word was smile, and that the only time she ever fought with the other children was to tell them they ought to share. My little peacemaker, she had said. Frigga, my darling, you're going to do so much.

She thinks about it now, as Njord kneels before the Asgard war-chief, as they all kneel, heads bowed and facing the ground. All that they have left is the vain hope of a peaceful surrender, and she closes her eyes, waiting to hear the staff go through her uncle's chest, to hear Odin Borson declare they all be slaughtered.

Outside, there is the sounds of screaming, of fire and of death. The last time she had looked out, the vista that had once been green and blue was orange and black, scorch and ruin. That was days ago, when the final siege had begun, and after that she had looked no further. She was no warrior, like her cousins, and there was no point in making the constant nightmares any more realistic.

"I say," the general says, "we kill the king and keep the rest. Let his head stand as a message to all those who would stand with Jotunheim over us." The general is dressed in black and green, has weaving horns like a monster, and a sharp toothed smile.

"Do you renounce the daughter of Thialfi?" Odin asks, looking down dismissively to where Njord kneels before him.

"Yes," he says, because for all he loves his wife, he is king, and must keep his people safe, and he is alive, and wants to stay that way, as all living things do.

"Then I appoint you vassal over these recently acquired lands of mine," Odin says, "and if I find any Jotnar has taken refuge in these lands, I will come to you, Van, and you shall know my fury." Njord shudders at that, for if the death and destruction across the lands here are not sign of the war-chief's fury, than he does not wish to know what is. "Gather a tithe," he says to his soldiers, and sits upon Njord's throne.

They go to loot the palace, and soon only Odin, his general, and a handful of soldiers remain. She expects, almost, that one of her cousins will make a move, but neither does. Perhaps it is because they accept their father's surrender. Perhaps it is because they know what she only suspects, the power that Odin and his general have on their own. Perhaps it is because Odin sits in such a way it would take mere seconds for him to kill Njord, who still kneels as they all do on the ground.

"Which of you are the heirs? I cannot tell who's royalty and who's a servant, you all dress the same," the general says, and Odin doesn't even look up. He gives her so much power. She rises, carefully, and sees her cousins do so as well. Then, so do the other more distant royal children, uncertain if they are to be led to the slaughter or saved.

The general walks around, looking at them all. "I recognize you," she says to Idunn, "I remember facing you on the battlefield. You fought with honor. It's a shame you took the coward's path to hide here, instead of dying there where you belonged. You would have made a lovely addition to Valhalla." Idunn bites her lips shut, likely holding back some barb about her belief in both Asgardian honor and the Asgardian afterlife.

"What do you think, father?" the general asks, stretching her arms to gesture to all of them standing in the hall. "How many more courtiers do we need?"

"You can never have too many attendants," Odin says. "Take all of them."

Maybe it's a blessing, she thinks, because who knows if the general would have let those heirs not chosen live. Better to be alive and serving in Asgard than dead in Vanaheim. Or maybe they would have survived, and this is a curse greater than she can imagine.

They sit in with the pilfered treasures, with jewels and stores and beautiful clothing. most of which she can place, some of which comes even from her rooms.

"It is only fitting," Idunn whispers, as they sit side by side. "We are stolen goods, after all. Royal hostages." She bites her lip, spits blood, and curses Odin's name. "A curse, a curse upon all Asgard," she whispers. "They are to end in fire, as we have, and let their gilded halls fall, as ours have done as well."

Frigga can feel the magic here, can feel how much her cousin has poured into this curse. If she had the skill of prophecy, she wonders what new declaration there would be. Wonders if the end of Asgard would now be foretold in fire.

"What now?" she asks, as the magic settles, the curse as solid as any object.

"We live, I suppose," Idunn says. "What else can we do?"

* * *

This is Asgard, she thinks, as they arrive, to the city on the edge of waterfalls, with it's golden, towering buildings. It looks hideous. 

She has spent her whole life in cities, but no city in Vanaheim was ever like this, so metallic and lifeless. It feels like a prison, even where there are no gates or bars. It feels gaudy, over done, full of the spoils of wars that she can only begin to imagine. Of course they would look upon the Vanir as plain, if this overdone mess was what they saw as beautiful.

Most of them are married off, and it is clear in the pairings that the only value they have here is in their difference, no matter how much they were princes and princesses back home. Idunn is partnered to one of Odin's cousins, a dreamy-eyed poet close enough to the throne to hold power but not enough to rule. Frey is lucky in that he is already married, and luckier still that none in Asgard know he married a Jotun, and he is sent off as some retainer to Alfheim. 

If only she had such a fate, because Alfheim is alive where Asgard seems dead. She is less royal than her cousins, even more so in Asgard's eyes, and so she receives no marriage proposal, only the job of handmaiden in the palace. It is a prestigious role, and so there are many handmaidens, and they don't seem to serve anyone at all.

"We serve the Queen," one of the girls says to her, as if she's a moron. There is no Queen of Asgard, for Odin has taken no bride, and none seem to claim the role of his partner. 

Perhaps they were meant to serve the general, but if that was the intent than Hela Odinsdottir has forsworn their company entirely. More than once has she listened to a tirade against the trivialities of woman, and how she prefers naught but blood and battle.

Hela is cruel, and views herself as second to only Odin in all the universe, something that is not entirely wrong. It isn't hard to find her threatening some lesser courtier or servant with outlandish punishement, only hardly rarer to find that punishment coming to pass. If she knows anything that isn't fighting, Frigga would be surprised. 

Within the first month, Hela challenges Idunn to a duel, to witness once more the prowess found on the battlefield. Idunn refuses, because she respects her father's surrender above all else, but the fight still happens. Idunn gets a few good blows, and for the first time ever Frigga witnesses the general bleed, and then it turns around, as Hela beats her within an inch of her life, going far past the boundaries of any reasonable duel. Everyone averts their eyes at that, but does not move away, lest she bring that wrath down upon them as well. 

"There is something wrong about her," Idunn says, as Frigga carries her to the healer's hall. "I wish that I could place what."

"She's Aesir," Frigga replies. "I think there's something wrong with all of them." The streets all look the same, and everything is glittering gold. "I want to go home," she says, sounding more like a child than she has in decades.

"Come by my garden," Idunn  tells her. "It may be small and tamed, but it is like a haven to me. You cannot spend all of your days in the palace, after all. I think it would do you good, to see something living in this place."

What good would it do, Frigga thinks, as she deposits her cousin in to the arms of the healers. A garden is naught but a prison for the wild, and she knows already what happens, to living things jailed.

* * *

Her mother told her not to wallow in her sadness, and as she feels herself spiraling downward in to depression, even with Idunn's company and her time spent in the garden, she takes this advice to heart.

Instead, she takes to task learning the city by heart. It isn't as if she will ever pass for a native, but it strikes her useful to know her cage like the back of her hand. It seems doubtful that she will ever be able to tell the buildings apart, and so she memorizes the street maps and amends them with knowledge of the changes, what people live in the areas, until soon she does not bring the city maps with her as she wanders through the maze like streets of Asgard.

Through this task, she finds what may be the only blessing the city seems to offer her.

The Library is a beautiful building, something even she who hates the architecture of Asgard can see. But more than that is what it holds, the most extensive archive of magical texts ever collected, carefully organized, beautifully bound. Her cousins are all magic, but theirs is raw, love and blood and death. Hers has always been a subtler craft, harder to learn and so never pursued. But here, she has all the time in the world, and all the texts that could ever be needed to perfect it.

The Library has one problem, that mars it from being her safe haven within the Golden City, and that is the All-Father. Odin spends as much time inside as she. Thankfully, most of the time he is locked away in the back rooms, with  the restricted books, but sometimes she has seen him, walking through the shelves, taking books and murmuring to himself. She hides away at the sound of boots, and watches him at a distance. In court, with people, he strikes a fearsome figure. Here, alone, unknowingly watched, he reminds her of so many people, of her uncle, of her cousins. 

The thought alone makes her sick to her stomach. 

She was never too fast a reader or a learner, but there is so little else to do in Asgard, and so a handful of years pass, most of a decade, and she grows stronger, and the books provide no more knowledge on the active use of magic, only theoreticals which may be of use someday but which she can not study now. The way forward is clear. There are undoubtedly more books, in the restricted section, but that means breaking in, means the potential of being caught, of being caught by Odin himself. 

It takes only a month, of debate, of planning, before she makes the attempt. Weaving her spells, she makes herself invisible, adapted from lessons on illusions, and steps through the walls, based on lessons on transmutations. 

The hidden hall is just as beautiful as the one outside, perhaps moreso, for it seems older, and darker, and truer. That, in the end, is her problem with Asgard. It shines so bright, and yet everything around her seems to be a lie, the glory all stolen, the darkness covered up.

The books are organized so loosely, and it is clear that none save the all-father have been back here in quite some time. She pulls the first tome out, and spirits it away, sitting hidden, devouring the runes before her, writing down the spells.

He senses her, senses something, not too long after she begins. "I know you're here," he calls out to an empty room, and she freezes, careful not to move, not to speak, and certainly not to drop the invisibility that shields her. "If you've come to kill me, try it now, for outside of the room, the guards will know immediately, and you shall not make it a yard." He holds his hand upon the hilt of his sword, and gazes around. When nothing happens, he sits down, and begins his studies. When he leaves, he mutters, "Still talking to empty rooms," and closes the doors behind him, and it is only then that Frigga is able to breathe once more.

It happens only once more, for afterwards she comes only briefly, when he is surely away, and waits a great deal between the visits, so shocked she was. He draws the sword, and stabs out at the air, and as he leaves that time, he sighs, and shakes his head, and looks so tired. 

Like her uncle, Njord, as the war with Asgard had drawn to its close, she thinks. 

There is a flash of sympathy, but she douses it quickly. He is the one who has started the wars, after all. Let it hurt him. Let it kill him, in the end. 

* * *

Twenty five years, she has lived in Asgard, and it only then that she feels she can walk the halls alone and not fear for being called out a trespasser, an assassin, a spy. The halls are full of hidden places, rooms that no one has touched in ages, places where one cannot be found, and she roams the seemingly endless halls of Asgard, and feels like a child once more, when the palace of Vanaheim had been like a puzzle maze. 

It is there, in some hidden hall, that she hears it, first. A child crying. 

Turns unfold before her, and the sound grows louder, until finally in a small, secluded room, she finds the crib. Without a moment's hesitation, she picks him up and begins to rock him back and forth, the sound growing softer, and finally stopping. It has been such an age, since last she did this, but the movements are difficult to forget. She wonders where those children are, now, how many of them are dead. 

The boy in her hands, golden-haired and rosy-skinned, is so clearly an Asa. A noble one at that, to be in the palace, but so young, she can only wonder where the mother is. Asgard may be a strange place, but it is not nearly so strange that mothers leave children so young.

"Who dares-" comes a voice, booming and familiar, and she pivots quickly, keeping the babe's head supported, to see Odin All-father entering the room. "You know what happens to you if you harm him," he says, and his voice is sharp, but his eyes are tired. Afraid. 

That explains the mother's absence, then, because even she who avoids the court knows what happened to Odin's latest paramore. The boy begins to cry again, and she resumes the gentle rocking, cooing gently.

"I hold the prince of Asgard," she says, staring down at the bright blue eyes. "I had not realized."

"Hold him no longer," Odin says, but does not reach for the sword at his side. 

She doesn't move. Right now, for the first time in what feels like forever, she holds all of the power in her hands. He is hardly the heir to the throne, but in the All-Father's eyes, it is clear, exactly how much he would risk on the boy's head. To kill him, that would be an unspeakable crime, but it would be so easy, to spirit him away, to leave Odin with nothing. To raise the boy in secret, and use him to topple down all of Asgard. 

And Odin would scour the realms to find him, and surely, he would succeed. 

"If you wish to hide your princeling, you would be wise to have someone watching over him. I was drawn down by the sound of crying, and only sought to comfort the child."

"Do not think that I believe you, little Van," Odin replies. "Set him down."

She looks across the room at him, as he says that. "Dead children will not bring Vanaheim anything but sorrow." She sets the child down, gently, and wraps him carefully in the blankets, such that he will not cry again any time soon. 

He steps closer, and she prepares for some spell to stop the sword that shall surely strike her down, but instead he stops at the other side of the crib, and gazes down at the child.

"He needs someone looking after him."

Odin looks at her, for a long while, and he bears no trace of anger on his face. "And you would place yourself in that role?" he asks, with the faintest hint of a smile.

"Who better?" she replies. "Or do you think that any of your handmaidens of yours would know a thing about childcare?"

"Perhaps, but you must think me stupid, Van, to place my son in hands so close to Jotunheim." He says the name like a curse, and seems barely a step away from spitting after it. That is what it comes down to, in the end. 

"Skadi would have no use for a dead child," she replies smoothly. "Nor would any Jotun, for that matter, seeing as how he is not your heir. All that would accomplish is rage, and they want no more of that from you. The only threat would come from one of your own."

"A guardian holds the child's ear more closely than any parent ever could," Odin says. "Would you not overthrow me in that manner, if I let you."

"Perhaps," she concedes, "but in the doing, I would craft a son of yours smart enough to rule, to rule well."

He stares at her for a very long time, and with each passing second she hears an order of execution ringing in her mind. "Care for him, then," Odin says at last, with a harrumph. "Perhaps through your ministrations, my son will have half a mind."

It is almost a compliment, she thinks as he walks away. How highly he must think of her. 

* * *

She stands behind Odin, for the naming ceremony, as Thor is presented to the crowd. Far enough in the back to be beyond much notice, but it draws the attention of the few Vanir who attend. The child is passed off to her, at the end, and she can feel the questioning gaze from her cousins, alongside the fervent glares from the few who notice her, not focused on Odin, as he addresses the crowd. 

Hela, she thinks, glares fiercest. She has yet to talk to the woman, has seen her only briefly in her role of caretaker, but every time Hela catches sight of her, she seems to radiate this endless rage. How dare Frigga hold a son of Odin. How dare she hold even a fragment of Odin's ear. 

It is later, when she comes, still in battle-armor, bloodstained, to see her baby brother. Frigga watches the interaction, unnoticed from across the room, and it is the only time she sees anything but greed, rage, or smugness on the general's face. The glimmer of joy, as she holds the child up in the air, and he giggles. It is a gruesome scene, and yet, it is the first time she is able to look at the girl as anything but a monster. 

"What are you staring at?" Hela curses at her, holding the child. "Go, Van. You are not needed here."

She opens her mouth, and knows as soon as she does that this is a horrible idea. It doesn't stop her.

"I never realized, until now," she says, not moving closer from where she leans against the door. She stares across the room, looking at the curve of her face, the rings beneath her eyes. "You're so young. You're a child, still." And how old could she have been, when they first met, or at the start of all these wars? Too young, even now, for battle. She must have spent years meant for playing on the battlefield. 

Hela is across the room before she even realizes it. "Shut up!" she yells, and Thor is on the floor and crying, now. As soon as she is close enough, Hela raises a hand and slaps her across the face. Dutifully, she keeps her head turned with the blow, but she stays standing, head unbowed. 

"I neither want nor need your pity, Van!" Hela yells. "I am the general of Asgard's armies, second only to my father!"

She is careful, to keep the overwhelming fear of imminent death out of her voice, only that calm, detached pity, as she says, "Yes, you are." Hela stares at her, and it seems she doesn't realize, how the words strike like daggers. Frigga moves aside, and picks up the crying Thor, rocking him in her hands. 

Hela says nothing else, but storms out, leaving the pair of them alone. Perhaps she goes to her father, to ask for her removal as Thor's guardian, or perhaps she goes for her room, to consider why it hurts so much. She canot help but smile at the thought. To break through the armor of Asgard's general is a feat so few have ever managed.

* * *

She is not exactly certain when Odin begins to court her, if it could even be called courting. It seems to her that anything requiring subtlety outside of politics is beyond the All-Father, and even there he rarely uses it. And so, in an attempt at subtle, for the King of Asgard is not quite as foolish as to think she would accept any offer that was painfully direct, the moves are practically indistinguishable from basic decency.

Perhaps that is where she should have caught the change. Basic decency seems in short amount in Asgard, and so perhaps it is a sign of courting.

If that is when he begins his attempts, then it is a year in to her guardianship of his son, and she interprets it as a sign that he trusts her with the child's life, even if he may not trust her in all things. He trusts her with a side that she is certain no one else sees as well, not even his daughter. A gentleness, a kindness. It is so jarring, to what she sees of him more often, the armored war-chief. 

It is late in the afternoon, and she is showing Thor little dancing lights, crafted by magic, and it takes her a painfully long time to realize that Odin is watching her. "I did not realize you were trained in seidr," he says, and it sounds almost like a threat, except the anger is not present in his voice or in his eyes. 

"I have yet to receive training," she tells him, which is only mostly true, for while most of what she learned she learned from books, when she was a child, she was taught. "I thought Asgard shunned such magic."

"Asgard might," Odin says with a shrug, "but I have not. Would you like it? Training, that is?"

There is so much there. As King, he _is_ Asgard, and so to accept what they shun is paradoxical, requires lies and double faces, but this is undoubtedly not the time to argue with him about the nature of politics. "I would," she says, "but you should not have me believe that you would allow me such power, so close to your son."

"All the better to protect him," Odin replies. "I have no doubt that I would be able to detect and reverse any spell placed upon his mind, and I have been told, with good reason to believe, that the Vanir have no use for him dead."

"And who would train me, then? You may accept the seidr, but I so doubt anyone else in the city does."

"I would." That throws her for a loop - not the answer, that was utterly predictable, and the only reason she asked was that it needed to be said. It is the bluntness that shocks her, and in that sentence, there is nothing but honesty, not just an honesty of action, which is not hard to find in Asgard, but that honesty of self, rarer than she could ever dream. 

"You are the King," she says, because for all she still has pleasant dreams of Asgard's fall, she is bound tightly to it's upkeep, now. "Would you truly be able to spend the time required, with all your duties?"

"The old wisdom, then," he replies smoothly. "I would grant you access to the restricted rooms of the library, to read the texts within, and assist you with what time I would be able to spare."

You give me too much power, she wants to say. Give me more, she wants to say. "How could I refuse such a generous offer," she says instead, fingers wrapped around golden curls of hair. "I look forward to training, then, under the old wisdom with you."

He smiles. It seems so genuine, and she's almost able to forget why she hates him. 

* * *

Her daughter is born screaming, loud and bloody, and with eyes that open as soon as they hit the air. It strikes her almost as prophecy, for the child's temperament. Either she will be wise, or she will be foolish. Anything in between would keep their eyes tightly shut.

Only two people see her, in the weeks before and the months after. One is Idunn, who cares for her, is the one to deliver the child, and the other is Odin, as is his right, as King, as the child's father.

She stays locked aside, in the lower halls, for safety and for health. She does not mind, for Odin brings her books, and Idunn brings her flowers, and Thor is down there as well, a stumblng toddler first learning how to walk. She introduces him, to his little half-sister, and swears that even if the girl is never accepted as Odin's daughter, that the two of them are raised together, for both are her children, even if only one is her blood.

It may be the happiest month of her life. It is like a haven, to not need to worry about the court, and so she spends all of her time learning magic and being with Thor and her beautiful, beautiful daughter.

Fool that she is, she has a name picked out. Aldrif. 

Asgard has made her weak. There is a reason babes are not named. Here in the palace, there is no illness to die from, but that does not mean that it is safe. Perhaps it is even deadlier, for while outside such a place the death of a child is an inconceivable crime, inside they are but pawns, and they live and die like game pieces. 

She never finds the body, or any trace of the intruders, nothing physical or magical that gives clue as to how they entered the halls, where she was taken, how they killed her. She searches, and searches, for even the smallest clue, tries even scrying, but everything is black, black as death. 

Odin scours the realms for her, and tells her thus, but Idunn is the one who tells her he does not admit it is his child that has been stolen, or that he searches for the daughter of Frigga, of a Vanir. Everything kept vague. 

She is the one who asks - no, orders - him to stop. For all she wants the fire, there is no point of it. Besides, while she would never say it, she suspects that it was an Asa who did the deed. Who, she could not say - and her guess, well, that she could not even sound out, how treasonous the word would be. 

So black, so black, the child will never be hers again. But, that does not mean she is dead. She cuts into her breast, carefully, and lets the blood drip down. "May she be kind, may she be brave, may she be loved, and may she love in turn, with a ferocity and a kindness that bends the very worlds. May she find her way back to her brother's side, against all odds. May she be safe. Oh, may she be safe."

At the end, she is crying, sobbing, and for all that she can feel the magic leave her, the seidr being woven, she cannot help but feel the prophecy is beyond her grasp. Prophecies never come true, in the way expected. Perhaps all she asks comes through, in whatever realm of the dead her daughter resides in. Perhaps she's doomed her step-son to an early grave.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

* * *

He comes to her, there, after a full month with no sign, no word, and she can hardly bear to see him, but she stands to greet him regardless.

Many things has she seen in Odin All-Father's face, but this is the first time he has worn his fear so plainly, with no trace of anger. She wonders if he brings some news of their daughter's death, some fate so horrible it shakes him to his core, but then she sees the bundle that he holds, beneath his heavy winter cloak.

"By those who sit above in shadow," she murmurs, as she looks at the Jotun babe in his arms, "Odin, what have you done?"

"You need to help me," he says, and his voice truly shows it, the panic, the fear. "He was all alone, in the middle of the woods, of a battlefield, he would have died, and I could not just -"

"Hand him here," and he does, with no hesitation. She holds the child, in the way she held her own, in the way she held Thor, in the way she held her cousin's son, who was the same frosty blue. 

"How many children have I left orphaned? How many, left to die so young? I grow so tired, of this endless war, of fighting and of death."

She does not give him her estimates. "He is no orphan," she says, peeling back the cloth of the bundle to gaze down at the lines that cross his skin. "He bears the marks of Laufey, war-chief of Farbauti's line. You have stolen a princeling, rather, a runt left out to die."

"You can care for him. You must know how." He sounds so desperate, and all for a Jotun. He seems like a different man. 

"Yes," she says. "But not without a price."

"What would you have me swear, to save this child's life?" 

She knows, in that moment, that there would be nothing short of murder, and perhaps not even that, that he would refuse. While it was hardly on purpose, she can see it now, the way she molded him, pushed him towards the breaking point. It is simple, in the end. Already, he was battle-weary, and from there, the slightest shove, topped with this, which could only come from prophecy.

"Marry me."

"I will." Not even a question why, no moment's pause to consider here her plan. 

"He will need to be disguised. Asgard will not suffer a giant in their midst, even with your word. Eventually, the spell will break, and so he must be a prince, a prince of Asgard. Our son, blood born. Only Idunn knows that our daughter is lost, and she is tight-lipped and trusts me with her very life. If he is anything less than your son, when it finally breaks, they will kill him."

"Is Asgard truly such a cruel place, to kill a man they haveve known since a child?" Odin asks her. 

"I only hope that, by the time it fades, Asgard is no longer so cruel a place they would kill their prince, learning he was Jotun. If he were anything but a babe, would you have brought him here?" He gives no answer, which is answer enough. "I highly doubt there will ever be peace, between Asgard and Jotunheim. Perhaps a wary truce, but nothing more, as long as you reign."

"But an end to war," Odin says, "You do think it possible?" It strikes her so surprising, a King doubting in the existance of peace, but in all her life she has never known Asgard not at, or at least on the brink, of war.

"Yes," she tells him. "But I cannot believe in peace. If we are able to undo half of the damage caused, I will count it a brilliant success."

He holds her close, arms wrapped around her shoulders. "It is the only way." 

She is left holding the child, as he leaves. The naming ceremony is to be in a week, and for all it feels a bad omen, premature, she has the name already, so solid in her mind. It is a Van name, an old one, but it sounds Asgardian enough that none would doubt it, strongly.

The child bats against the floating lights she manifests, and tries to hold them in his tiny, blue palms. She cannott help but see herself, some twisted mirror of when she had first arrived in Asgard, those many years ago. 

"Oh, my little knot-seal," she whispers, lips pressed against the cold blue skin. "My precious little Loki, I hope you have a better life than I. And though I cannot believe it, I hope peace comes in your name."

* * *

Two weeks later, Asgard is a different place. The leftover signs of fighting fill the streets. Hela Odinsdottir is imprisoned in the crypt, and there are too many dead, the Valkyries halved in number. And yet, there is alight in their eyes she has not seen in so long. A hope. The All-father is not the only one, to grow tired of the endless war, and at the naming ceremony, they announce their marriage, and it is not just her fellow Van who cheer. 

It is far from perfect, but it is better than it has ever been before. Carefully, she begins to clear the palace of those who vehemently oppose a Vanir Queen, sending them out to the edges of the city, and the fields beyond. They will be an issue, later, but for now it is more important that her sons are raised never knowing of such things, never learning the hate that seems to prevail. It goes alongside Odin's coverup, of the past, of Hela. There is a mixture of emotions there she cannot fully describe. Of a girl thrust in to war, now so far gone. Of not wanting to remember the darkness, the cruelty, the hat, not wanting her sons to see that is their inheritance. 

There is so much to be done, but the first thing she decides to do as Queen, she thinks, preparing for the wedding ceremony, will be to plant gardens throughout Asgard. To live so cut off, from the world, from life, while it may not cause the problems that plague Asgard, it surely cannot help. Already, she can see it, green and gold, leaf and metal, vine and stone.

For the first time, she looks out upon the city, and thinks it beautiful.


End file.
